Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Here is another Event that I am guest hosting for the month of September. This event was started by "Lite Bite" as "Wholesome Wholegrain Cooking" theme. I am very thankful to her for letting me guest host this event and I am choosing WWC- "Cornmeal For Breakfast" for this months event.

Cornmeal is flour ground from dried maize or corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to fine, medium, and coarse consistencies.

You can use any kind or cornmeal, white yellow or blue or multicolored and it can be any recipe for breakfast. I choose cornmeal for breakfast as I thought that cornmeal is a very healthy and heavy ingredient, which one needs to eat during his fist meal of the day that will keep him fresh and energetic all through out the day.

We all should eat a healthy and wholesome breakfast and never skip one, as the first meal of the day will keep you bright and with loads of energy all through the day.

There is a question about installing tile kitchen flooring over at Hometalk, a new and useful web site where you can get your questions about remodeling answered by other homeowners and pros. I would like to answer the question here; where I have more room, and others can benefit from the knowledge.

A great deal depends on whether you plan to go to the ceiling with your cabinets. If not - No problem...Ah well...a few.

If so, then you could run into problems with an 8', or less, ceiling and manufactured cabinets. Especially if your new flooring is thicker than the old (tile and floating floors always are). Flooring installers also often "level-up" your floors during installation. Or they add underlayment. These unknowns can impact your cabinet installation later on.

Manufactured cabinets come in standard heights. Most manufacturers make a 96" cabinet (such as a pantry or tall oven cabinet) 96" tall. 96"=8' folks. If you have an 8' ceiling the toekick of the cabinet will have to be removed to even stand it up in the room (Some manufacturers will ship the toekick as a separate piece).

In this situation there is no room in the equation for flooring underneath the pantry cabinet. The ceiling will become less than 8' and the pantry cabinet will have to be cut down in height to fit. Many cabinets these days have doors that fully cover the face of the cabinet leaving no room to shave it down on the job (also no room for crown or trim moldings). You CAN cut down the toekick, but too much there looks really odd.

That means cutting it down at the factory. You discover you are boxed in to semi-custom, or custom, manufactured cabinets at 50-100% higher cost than stock, just to get a 94" high pantry. Even if you planned to buy those anyway, most manufacturers charge an upcharge to make a cabinet a special height, so it'll cost more either way.

A solution might be to cut out the flooring where the cabinets will be installed, leaving flooring under the dishwasher, fridge and range. Better to plan ahead and do the flooring AFTER the cabinets are installed. Remember to allow for the necessary height (usually about 34-1/2") of your dishwasher between the finished flooring and the underside front edge of the countertop. Do the same for refrigerator enclosures.

The second issue is an out-of-level floor (very common - especially in older homes):

Cabinets must be installed level and plumb (straight up and down) to have cabinets that are square and doors and drawers that operate properly. That means the installer finds the high point of the existing floor at the walls where base and tall cabinets are to be installed and draws a level line from that point around the room to establish the baseline height of each base and tall cabinet.

In my 28 year career as a kitchen designer in the San Francisco area, I have seen floors out of level as much as 4" from one end of a run of cabinets to the other (any more than that and you'd HAVE to level up the entire house!). A 4" drop in level around a room means the installer has to shim up the cabinets 4" at the low point to bring them up to level with the ones at the high point. This results in a 4"H toekick at the high point and an 8"H toekick at the low point. All this is a heck of a lot easier to hide if he (or she) isn't dealing with a finished floor already in place.

The third issue is floor damage during cabinet installation:

Installing cabinets and appliances is hard work and the installer is often wrestling with big, heavy cabinets and appliances. He/she is also riding herd on helpers, plumbers, electricians, countertop fabricators, and other subs who have no responsibility for your finished floor. The chances are high that it will be damaged and require repair (if possible). Nobody will know who did it. Much better to have a nice dinged up old subfloor to work on until the very end, and then install the new floor, install the baseboards, and do paint touch-up (or even all the painting.

It's harder to compute the thickness of your finished floor while your kitchen is in the planning stages. It takes an experienced designer, or contractor/installer to do it. But the task is well worth the trouble to avoid the above problems. This is one of the many reasons to use an experienced designer and/or contractor/installer.

It's also one of the many reasons why I recommend that my clients make ALL decisions regarding the products and materials that are going into their kitchen BEFORE ordering anything or taking a crowbar to anything. Simply changing your flooring material thickness after the fact can throw a monkeywrench into the best laid plans.

I usually specify in my drawings that the cabinets be set at the finished floor height of the high point. Then I order the cabinets to fit. If I am dealing with stock cabinets on a low-budget project, then I have to be very careful about taking the floor thickness into account so that the cabinets will fit.

Peggy

P.S. In my experience the only people who recommend installing flooring before the cabinets are the floor guys. Makes their job a lot easier;-D

P.P.S. I forgot to mention one thing that makes finishing off the junction between flooring and toekick much cleaner when installing the flooring after cabinets are installed. That is an additional, over-sized, 1/2" thick toekick cover panel that is installed over the flooring. I order it over-sized to cover any shimming done under the cabinets. It can be scribed to the floor and gives a great finished look. Most all cabinet manufacturers offer such material and it is well worth the additional cost.

After the rip-roaring success of the Serve It - Fried event (with 117 entries), here we are with the next theme for the Serve It - Series. The theme for this month is "Steamed". If frying makes everything taste better, Steaming is nothing less compared to it. There are authentic recipes in every cuisine which are steamed.

I thought of this recipe for Radhika's - "Blog Hop Wednesday" as I was going through my 3rd week partner - Madhusmita's blog "RedSpice.in" and found this lemonade very interesting. I basically love lemonade and always keep in the fridge. It's so refreshing and cool during the summer and lot better than coke or pepsi.

The other reason for me to choose this recipe is because it is very easy and simple to make. Tomorrow I am busy most of the day because if "Vinayaka Chaturthi" and I have to take my son to a play date with kids, where I need to stay with him. But I am absolutely happy for trying some refreshing, healthy, homemade and simple yet colorful drink.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

I always eat lemon cilantro rice when I go to Chipotle restaurant. I love the aromatic rice and the tangy lemon flavor, so I wanted to try that once at home. I know it is simple, but sometimes you feel like eating simple food which is so aromatic, refreshing and light. My mind started thinking something different, so when I opened the fridge I didn't see cilantro but parsley. I love the flavor of parsley and and use it more in Italian recipes and I know that Shoj and Anush will also like it. So I made this with lot of parsley and it was a great hit. I can say, it's the best dish for lazy days, it will surely lighten up your mind and feel fresh. Now lets go back to the recipe... :)

Ingredients:------------2 cups Cooked Rice ( I used Basmati Rice - cooked it with 3 1/2 cups of water and salt)1 cup Parsley chopped1 Juice of Lemon

Method:---------1. In a large mixing bowl, add the cooked rice when it's hot, mix with lemon juice so that each rice is well coated with the lemon tangy taste. (You can add less or more lemon juice according to your taste).

2. Allow the rice to come to a warm temperature and then add the chopped parsley and mix well again gently, making sure not to break the rice.

Note: Adding herbs at the very end of cooking or when the food is warm or cold will make the herbs retain it's color and release their aroma better and also will retain it's nutrients.

Method:Heat oil in a pan. Add the ground paste. Add chilli powder, salt and turmeric powder. Add some water if the gravy is very thick. Fry till the raw smell goes away and oil starts to separate from the sides of the pan.Fry paneer cubes to light golden brown. Add the pieces to the gravy. Add peas. Simmer for 5 minutes.Garnish with coriander leaves, kasoori methi and butter.Serve with chapathis or rice.

Here is another quick and easy recipe using jowar grains. I remembered the laddu posted by Srivalli and checked it and found it suits my BM theme of cooking with five or less ingredients. Noted the recipe and went to the kitchen straight away and the laddus were ready in 15 minutes. It makes a very healthy snack for kids and adults alike. There is very little ghee used in the recipe and is sweetened with jaggery. This fits the bill as a nutritious sweet for your after meal dessert.

Time Taken : 15 minutesYields : 11 nos

You need

Jowar grains - 1/2 cup

Grated jaggery - 1/2 cup

Cardamom - a pinch

Ghee - 1 tablespoon

Cashew - 5 nos, coarsely ground

Method

To prepare this laddu, jowar pops is ground and mixed with jaggery. Ghee is the binding agent. First the pops are to be made. Heat a pan. When it is hot, add the jowar grains. Keep stirring it. After 2-3 minutes, the grains will start pop. For me, not even half of the grains popped and I stopped roasting further in the fear of burning the grains.

Pulse the jowar pops in the mixer grinder. Don't grind it to a fine powder. Add the grated jaggery to it. Pulse it further so that it makes a homogeneous mix. Take the mix to a bowl. Add cashews, cardamom powder and warm ghee to the mix. Mix well. The mix may look dry but you will be able to make balls out of it. Make lemon sized balls. Press it tight so that it stays together. It is very tasty that its difficult to stop with one.

Ganesha is Beejapooraphalaasakta - The one who loves the fruit Citron (Narthampazham in Tamil and Heralekai in kannada ). A delicious Kalanda Saadam / Chitraanna can be prepared using the juice of this fruit.

But here is a rice dish prepared with another favourite fruit of Lord Ganesha - the pineapple fruit.

Chickpeas is also known as cecibean, garbanzo beans, chana (North India), Indian pea, bengal gram, is an edible legume. Chickpeas are high in protein and one of the earliest cultivated vegetables; 7,500 year-old remains have been found in the Middle East.

Nutrition

-----------

Chickpeas are a helpful source of zinc, folate and protein. They are also very high in dietary fiber and hence a healthy source of carbohydrates for persons with insulin sensitivity or diabetes. Chickpeas are low in fat and most of this is polyunsaturated. Nutrient profile of desi chana (the smaller version - one shown in the picture) is different, especially the fiber content which is much higher than the light colored variety.

100gms of mature boiled chickpeas contains 164 calories, 2.6gms of fat (of which only 0.27gms is saturated), 7.6gms of dietary fiber and 8.9gms of protein.

Chickpeas also provides dietary phosphorous (49-53 mg/100 g), with some sources citing the garbanzo's content as about the same as yogurt and close to milk.

23% Protein

64% total Carbohydrates (47% Starch, 6% soluble sugar)

5% Fat

6% Crude Fiber

2% Unknown

There is also a high reported mineral content:

Phosphorous (340 mg/100 g)

Calcium

Magnesium (140 mg/100 g)

Iron (7 mg/100 g)

Zinc (3 mg/100 g)

Recent studies have also shown that they can assist in lowering of cholesterol in the bloodstream.

Last week was a very happy week, as I received many awards from the event that I sent recipe for the month of July 2011. These words of appreciation was too encouraging, thanks for all of them for being so generous.

The second award I got was on the 4th of Aug, for the event "Serve it - Grilled" hosted by Krithi and the award was given for me for sending 5 entries and for participation

Today , July 24th 2011....it's already 11.30 in the night and I was about to close my blog, I just checked the comments section and to my surprise I saw this beautiful comment saying that I was one of the three members selected in the Event "Any one Can Cook: Series 27" for my recipe "Strawberry Swirl Cones"

I am so happy to win this event for the first time. I will sleep so happily today!.

Today the 13th of July 2011 received another bunch of awards from Sangee from Typical Indian Cooking. I would like to thank her very much for sharing these awards with me and her fellow bloggers for my recipes and crafts. I was so glad, happy and excited to see these awards. These words of appreciation will make me more motivated to cook healthy food and follow my passion in baking and decorating cakes and also in painting and crafts.